Angola, Africa’s second-biggest oil producer, is starting a sovereign wealth fund with $5 billion in assets to ease the impact of commodity price volatility that prompted an International Monetary Fund loan three years ago.
The Fundo Soberano de Angola, or FSDEA, is to be managed by a three-member board led by Armando Manuel, an adviser on economic issues to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, he told reporters today in Luanda, the capital. Investments will include financial securities and stakes in infrastructure and hospitality projects and other industries that may exhibit strong growth in sub-Saharan Africa, he said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Forget sovereign debt for a moment. This is turning into the year of sovereign wealth, with Angola becoming the latest African country to create a fund to invest some of the proceeds of growing oil riches.
The sovereign wealth fund – known as Fundo Soberano de Angola (FSDEA) – will start with $5bn in assets, and look to invest primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. Angola joins Nigeria and Tanzania in launching or planning to launch a SWF in 2012………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Angola’s government announced Wednesday the creation of a sovereign wealth fund that will invest profits from oil sales in businesses in an effort to diversify the country’s economy and spread prosperity beyond the small elite that has benefited from Angola’s outsize economic growth.
The Angolan fund, which will focus on investments in Africa’s booming hotel industry and large infrastructure projects, seeks to wean the economy from oil, a finite resource, to a more diversified and sustainable base, said José Filomeno de Sousa dos Santos, a son of President José Eduardo dos Santos, and a member of the fund’s board………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Grayling has been charged with leading global PR for Angola’s new $5bn sovereign wealth fund. The firm secured the business, estimated at around $500K, following a competitive review earlier this year, revealed by the Holmes Report.
The Fundo Soberano de Angola (FSDEA) aims to ease the impact of commodity price volatility in Africa’s second-biggest oil producer, after an IMF loan three years ago………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and Southeast Asia’s biggest sovereign wealth funds plan to maintain a long-term investment strategy even as the global debt crisis drives volatility higher.
GIC, which manages more than $100 billion of the city- state’s reserves, said in July it almost quadrupled its cash allocation as it pared bonds and stocks, and European holdings amid the region’s debt crisis. The fund has said its objective is to beat global inflation over a 20-year investment horizon………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and private equity investor Red Fort Capital are among the potential bidders to acquire the real estate assets of Hindustan Teleprinters (HTL), in which Himachal Futuristic Communications (HFCL) holds a 74% stake. State Bank of India (SBI) took possession of the 10.16-acre company land in Chennai after HTL was deemed as a non-performing asset.
The land may fetch more than Rs 400 crore in a bidding process, said people familiar with the matter. Singapore’s sovereign investment arm GIC has increased its exposure to domestic real estate facing liquidity constraints. GIC and Red Fort are expected to rope in real estate firms for a mixed use development in one of the largest land banks in Chennai’s central business district………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Economist and former federal Liberal leader John Hewson has criticised the Future Fund – Australia’s largest – for the way it manages, or fails to manage, the risks of climate change to its $75 billion portfolio. Hewson chairs the Asset Owners Disclosure Project, an organisation encouraging funds to recognise the long-term risks of climate change – both in policy terms and its physical events.
The AODP says a Freedom of Information search conducted two years ago found that climate change had not been mentioned in any of the board meetings of the Future Fund, and it was still refusing to provide stakeholders with clarity about its strategies to protect its portfolio because of “resource constraints”………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The House of Representatives yesterday declared Nigeria’s excess crude account illegal and in clear breach of the constitution that provides for all government’s funds to be remitted to the country’s consolidated federation account.
Also, the House declared its intention to reduce the recurrent expenditure and increase the capital expenditure contained in the recently presented 2013 budget estimates………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Sovereign wealth funds are finding volatility tough to navigate, while hedge funds are battling unrealistic investor expectations, say panellists at the Salt Singapore summit.Hedge fund managers, particularly in Asia, have been pressed about their ability — or in some cases the lack thereof — to generate returns, particularly in volatile markets.
“When GIC was first set up in 1981 we had the real objective of generating long-term returns,” says Lim Chow Kiat, deputy group chief investment officer at GIC Asset Management, which is the Singapore government unit that handles investments in alternatives, equities, fixed income and foreign exchange………………………………………..Full Article: Source